Wednesday 21 December 2011

MRC - finally - funds biomedical research into ME

Better late than never the MRC has revealed who is getting the £1.5 million for biomedical research into ME (just a shame it wasted £5 million on PACE). The Sjogren's seems a bit added on, and I am not sure how they overlap (do Sjogren's patients also have post-exertional exhaustion, the hallmark symptom of ME?), but it's  more welcome than the irrelevant studies on ME the MRC usually funds. I am pleased about the mitochondrial research (though it is unclear whether they are directly using PWME!). Also, not so sure about the sleep aspect either, even after a good night's sleep - not disturbed - you do not feel anything like normal, though I agree that insomnia/disturbed sleep is hellish. So, seems a bit of a higgledy-piggledy assortment of research, but in UK we have to be grateful for every crumb of recognition we get, and that they are not ramming harmful therapies down our throats.

I also  note that that MRC states: 'in response to the high quality of the applications received, the MRC decided to provide an extra £150,000 to support the package of successful projects.' This is no doubt a mealy-mouthed way of saying it wasted £5 million before, and that it never used to fund high quality applications but  now it is going to start, as it can't honestly get away with funding psychosocial nonsense any longer.

*More on the University of Liverpool mitochondria research, I am heartened by this project, but please ignore the press release photo of the  obligatory well-groomed, tired woman with laptop to represent ME.

** University of Newcastle press release on its MRC funding.

2 comments:

Lyndsey-Jane said...

I had gone 6 years with awesome Drs helping me all they could, but in the past 6 weeks I've been told my ME is a mental health condition (not something I have experienced before) and then when my rheumatologist (who is supposed to be treating me for recently diagnosed ankylosing spondylitis) discovered I had ME, decided that exercise and a job would cure all my pain and problems.

vw said...

Thanks for this summary nasim, been behind with the goings on so this was news to me. Still absorbing it all but seems encouraging to me. Laughing at you saying ignore the well groomed woman in front of her laptop. Why are they always well groomed clutching their heads like a working woman tired after a long day at the office? We wish! It just looks so false you've got to laugh x